i8 
THE MUSEUM 
elaborately-carved altar piece which was discovered in a ruined temple of that ancient 
city. It is shown in the following cut, taken from a photograph. 
On the original slab this cross is surrounded by grotesque and elaborate ornaments ; 
on its summit is perched a bird, and the long arm rests on an ill-defined figure, supposed 
by some to be a skull, but which is more probably the head of a serpent. Nothing 
could be more in accord with Christian symbolism than such a representation of the 
cross bearing aloft the bird (the dove) and planted victoriously on the head of the 
serpent. But all these symbols had other meanings among the tribes who built 
Palenque. The cross, the serpent and the bird were all symbols of the winds and 
rains, of the productive powers of nature, and of the gods of the harvests. 
CROSS OF PALENQUE. 
CROSS OF LORILLARD. 
The Latin form of the cross seems to have been the favorite of their ra.ce, for 
among the ruins of an ancient city on the upper waters of the Usumacinta river, 
visited a few years ago by M. Charnay and Mr. Alfred Maudsley, and christened by 
the first-named traveller “Lorillard City,” he found several representations of this 
cross sculptured on the stone lintels of the temples. I take the figure of one from his 
recently published work Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde. He calls it “The 
Cross of Lorillard,” both cross and city being named from the generous American 
manufacturer who advanced the money requisite for the explorations. 
Several of these crosses are held in the hands of the persons whose figures appear 
on the tablets; they are surmounted by the conventional figure of a bird, and no doubt 
have the same reference to the gods of the winds and rains which is discerned in that 
at Palenque. 
